Sound-induced nostalgia!
One of the signs that anime became even more mainstream is that the largest music streaming service, Spotify, recognized its importance and created not one, not two, but four playlists dedicated to music in anime called Anime Rewind.
These playlists are divided by the decades, starting with the 80s and going all the way to the 10s, awakening nostalgia in anime fans of all generations. Opening themes in the anime are designed to be catchy and stay in your head for a very long time, so that even after years of not hearing a single beat from them, the familiar notes from these playlists would instantly make you feel at home. All of these playlists are quite long, lasting from two and a half hours to nearly five hours, so you'll have a lot of time to immerse yourself in the music that was with you when your love for anime was in its early stages.
Scientists say that our musical taste is mostly formed between the ages of 11 and 16 years, so those of us who were already aware of anime at this age are probably still loving the tracks that surrounded us in our teen years.
The most obscure playlist, at least for Western audiences, is the 80s one: it includes not only the tracks from the shows that were released internationally, but also from the classics that never lest the Japanese market. Some of the tracks are from the kids' shows, others from the mecha classics, but all of them are absolute bangers, perfectly showing the era when they were released.
The next playlist, with the 90s music, features more tracks that are familiar to the average anime lover, but is still filled with music that even some of the hardcore Western fans wouldn't know. Both playlists show a huge variety genre-wise: some tracks are straight-up pop music, the others are filled with a heavy guitar sound, some even sound like experimental electronics.
The playlist featuring the tracks from the 00s series and movies, from the era of the widespread broadband connection, has tracks that are familiar not only to those who were submerged into anime culture, but also to those who just were online at that time, engaging in the culture that brought us the first memes.
The last playlist with the tracks from 10s anime titles is the longest one and the most diverse one — as is this generation. The amount of tracks that went viral in this one is insane, but it also features a lot of songs that were not very popular despite being amazing.
All of these playlists can be considered a brief sociological research, showing what kind of music invokes these fuzzy feelings of nostalgia in anime fans all over the world. And that begs the question: which playlist made you reminisce about the good old days?